


Cover up the blank spots, hit me on the head

by saltstreets



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29334078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets
Summary: Cold outside, warm inside. Can't argue with that.
Relationships: Thomas Blanky/Francis Crozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	Cover up the blank spots, hit me on the head

**Author's Note:**

> It's been snowing where I live since Saturday, and when I woke up this morning to see it still drifting down I got inspired! For the Wednesday prompt, "frozen in".
> 
> Title is from [This Must Be The Place](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsccjsW8bSY), because if I have to think about Blanky/Crozier in the context of that song and feel my poor little heart just struggle to deal with it then so do you.

It had been a cold winter. Blustery, too, which meant that although tiny crystals of snow were almost permanently falling, they were too light to settle evenly into much of a build-up, and instead were tossed and flung by the wind, forming high drifts along the edges of rooftops and in the shadowy lees of walls but leaving the streets more or less bare. Each morning brought the discovery of more snow in some places and far less in others, but all of it so dry and powdery that it was an easy enough task to sweep it aside and carry on.

So when Crozier awoke to find his little window -which normally fulfilled its purpose of permitting daylight into his somewhat shabby room in a bleary but overall acceptable fashion- to be entirely shuttered from the outside by a large drift, he wasn’t terribly surprised. The tricky bit now would be opening the window without having the stuff all come tumbling into the room and onto the rug. He’d have to be quick about it: just a single decisive movement to fling the thing open and hope for a bit of luck that the wind wouldn’t choose that exact moment to aim a cheeky puff in his direction.

He prepared himself, steadying his hands on the cold metal of the window frame with only a minor wince, and then pushed outwards with a firm, sharp energy.

No result. The window refused to budge, and furthermore refused to give any sort of explanatory account of itself.

That _was_ surprising. Crozier frowned, and shoved at the window again. This time he got a resentful sort of creaking from the frame and the unmistakeable scraping, cracking sound of ice crystals compacting. If there was one thing that Crozier knew, it was what ice sounded like. Interesting.

“Hm,” said Crozier, staring at the problem. “Tom,” he continued in a slightly louder tone, “come over here.”

“No. _You_ come back to bed, Frank,” mumbled Blanky sleepily from the area of said bed.

“We are frozen in, Tom.”

“Oh, are we?”

“I can’t get the window open.”

Blanky begrudgingly ventured his head out from the nest of comforter and pillows he had built for himself. Crozier had never known a burrower in bed like Tom Blanky: no matter how even and neat the bedclothes might be when he slid in, by morning they would have been gathered up almost meticulously to form a cocoon. Crozier just had to make sure that he himself wound up on the _inside_ of that cocoon. As instantaneous as Blanky was to wake when called upon while at sea, on land he slept like a stubborn rock. More than once Crozier had had to almost physically fight him to get the blankets back in the dead of night.

Now Blanky blinked away sleep and observed the window. Crozier put his hands on his hips and tried to look stern, as befit the severity of the situation.

“I don’t see that there’s a problem whatsoever,” said Blanky, and descended once more into the depths of the bed.

“Thomas!” Crozier mock-scolded, amused, “Is it not a Wednesday, a perfectly viable day for doing honest work-”

“-and us without a ship to sail on should be taking full advantage of the day given us to go down to the docks and see what there is to be seen, before retreating out of the fucking freeze to get drunk in one of the finer public establishments on offer by this great city?” Blanky completed, sticking his head back out into the open with a grin on his face. “C’mon now, Francis. And look- the window’s entirely blocked up. It might well still be midnight out there, and not time for rising in the least. Now get come back to bed. I’ll show you I’ve got some honest work you can try right here, if you’re so eager to put your hands to good use.” The grin had taken on a few qualities of a leer, and Blanky winked. There was muffled movement beneath the pile of bedclothes that was possibly him wriggling his hips enticingly.

As a matter of fact it was not midnight: there was a clock on the mantle that had a cracked face but which was, to the best of Crozier’s knowledge, perfectly serviceable, and it was a highly respectable eight in the morning. But Blanky’s leer had lost its comedic edge and tempered into an expression that was waking a pleasant warmth in Crozier’s belly, so he wisely decided it best to leave the clock out of the discussion altogether.

He abandoned his efforts by the window, and returned to the bed. Blanky helpfully lifted a corner of comforter to welcome him in, and to show him the precise nature of the work he had in mind.

“Warm up those hands, first,” he ordered. “I know what that window frame is like first thing in the morning, and that’s not mentioning any ice.”

“Yes sir,” said Crozier agreeably, and reached out to grab at the very warm, very unprotected back of Blanky’s neck.

Blanky let out an undignified yelp and tried to retreat while smacking Crozier at the same time. “Not on me, you awful old goat!”

“You should have been- ow- more specific- alright, alright.” Crozier rubbed his hands together, and then increased the pace of his efforts with more enthusiasm as Blanky began tracing a dawdling little pattern out on his thigh that had no real meaning but a very definite destination.

“There you go. Warm hands.”

The hands were inspected and found to be sufficient. Blanky kissed the pad of Crozier’s left thumb quite sweetly, and Crozier’s stomach took a fluttering little swoop. He would never get used to having this, and so easily. “Warm enough. Best not leave them idle, now.”

“Indeed,” Crozier agreed, finally navigating his way back fully into the warm glow of the bed and Blanky’s waiting arms. “The Devil’s tools, after all.”

“Well, that’s one thing I’ve never heard you call it before, but I can’t say I’m not flattered-”

“Oh, shut up,” said Crozier affectionately, and reached for him.


End file.
